HOW NAIL POLISH SAVED THE U.S.S. EUROPA FROM CE...
by Casey Greene
Summary: (Ahem) How Nail Polish Saved the U.S.S. Europa From Certain Destruction. PG for a bit 'o harsh words. This first bit is the intro to the crew and cap'n, and then the rest of it is most of the story. Sorry I haven't finished it yet. soon, I promise!!!!
1. Introduction

HOW NAIL POLISH SAVED THE U.S.S. EUROPA FROM CERTAIN DESTRUCTION

By Casey Greene

Introduction

"CAPITAN Amy Peterson has hereby taken command of the U.S.S. Europa this 22nd day of July, stardate 49752.8." God, I must have listened to that log a million times. The computer practically starts playing it when it hears me coming to my quarters. I listened to it for a thousand reasons. To remind me that I controlled the lives of over 700 crewmen. To cheer me up after a long day. To keep me from shooting my whole bridge crew out the torpedo tubes and then running a phaser calibration test. Let me tell you a little about the dynamics of my ship before you shoot me out a 'tube.


	2. Meet The Crew

HOW NAIL POLISH SAVED THE U.S.S. EUROPA FROM CERTAIN DESTRUCTION

By Casey Greene

Meet The Crew

I am the Captain, Amy Peterson. I come from Earth, from a little ol' town next door to Starfleet HQ called San Jose. I have a younger sister in the veterinary service, Amanda, and a younger brother in the "I wish I was in Starfleet" business of trying to get into as much trouble as possible without getting caught but still having fun. My mother Ayortiana died about 10 years back, but when she was alive, she was a biochemist. My father Michael was a computer technician, but we haven't spoken much since Mom died. I myself am thirtyish, unattached, with brownish-blond hair, and a medium build. And I love Science Fiction and acting. May the inventor of the holodeck be canonized as a saint! Oh, wait, he already has. Well, it's the thought that counts, right?

My First Officer: Peter "PB" Brown XVII. And his dog (a little weasel-rat thing), Jay. Quite possibly the most boring person alive today. He was an accountant before he came to Starfleet. I once asked one of his "friends" (the visiting medical researcher studying brain degradation) why he had even joined. He said that PB lost a bet and had to join up. When I remarked that PB didn't seem like a gambling man, he grinned and said he was "drunk."

My Pilot: Jim "Rambo of the Spaceways" Frank. A huge, burly Andorian who talks like Arnold Schwarzenegger from the 20th Century's entertainment business. Even his antennas are muscled. He looks totally formidable; when I first met him, I almost phasered him. But I soon found out that he had a great sense of humor, unusual for an Andorian. He is also the best pilot in Starfleet. He's also good at other things...

Science Officer: Snarek T'Poing. I don't care what you say about the Vulcan sense of smell, this alien has none whatsoever. If he did, then he would clean himself. At least once a month. But no. I always send him on away missions, because everyone is decontaminated, so he is clean, and then we fumigate his room. Seriously. He doesn't notice a damn thing. You know how Spock on Kirk's Enterprise would raise his legendary eyebrow every now and then? This guy snorts. I swear on my Captain's Chair, he snorts. Somebody says something sarcastic, we all laugh, and then we hear this noise. Snarek. Snorting. Loudly.

Communications Officer: 101001. I. Have. A. Freaking. BYNAR. For. My. Communications. Officer. Of all the crazy shit in the universe, how the hell'd I get stuck with a BYNAR as my COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER, instead of, say, meeting a race of hot guy aliens in search of a beautiful queen with brownish-blond hair that they wish to worship? Now that would be ironic, because I have brownish-blond hair! But no, I get stuck with the only Bynar in the whole damn fleet and he's MY communications officer. He sure can work the replicators, though, I'll have to give him that.

Weapons Officer: Kath'Len Nhoc-Tah. Here is a girl I am never letting go of, Katie. She's a Klingon, seemingly eternally pissed off (except to her best friend, me!), and she never misses. She's blown up more ships than Captain Kirk had women! I'm the only one who calls her Katie, or even knows she's called that. She calls me "Petey." We've known each other since we were little, when she scared the shit out of me, jumping out of some bushes when I was walking home from school. She said I screamed very well, and I said thank you.

Chief Medical Officer: Leluoncilshmatguistnerptaatu-"Docta Love." A creature of the Dominion (Gamma Quadrant), Docta Love , as he has dubbed himself, can take any form he wants. I think that is just like totally cool, and he is very useful on missions that I'm not at liberty to discuss with you so I'll stop talking about that. Every Starbase we stop at, he knows what bars to go to, the best restaurants, and some pretty amazing trading kiosks. He's got 50 friends in every port it seems, even if he does get a little gooey sometimes. But he has helped us out of many a jam, especially "inspections" by Admiral Yportne, Starfleet's Emperor of All Darkness and Evil. Yportne seems to have a "thing" with the Europa; hell if I know what it is. But every time we're within an hour of Earth, he demands to "inspect" our ship and proceeds to waste our time talking with PB until I call up the Docta and he just happens to be due for a reliquification-all over Yporne.

Engineer: Kasi Jonze. One total bitch, the whole way through. She has terrorized her whole department, reports from her come through the computer or over the intercom. I haven't seen a messenger with a PADD from her in years. The only thing that keeps this ship running is luck. Hell, she probably scared the warp drive into working as well as it does. That would probably explain why we always drift a few meters from the station when she gets off.


	3. The Story!!

HOW NAIL POLISH SAVED THE U.S.S. EUROPA FROM CERTAIN DESTRUCTION

By Casey Greene

"CAPTAIN'S personal log, April 27 by my calendar. I hate that idiot stardate crap. You never know what day it is. Anyways. AAAAAARRRRGGGG!!! This has been the worst week of my life. Worse than Hazing week at the Academy. Worse than Final Finals. Worse than last week. At least last week the replicators would make food. Even 101001 can't figure them out, and he's been talking to them ever since they stopped working. Or should I say working 'properly'? All they spit out is nail polish. Not even a nice color, like red or pink or pearly white or even clear. No. They spit out the most revolting oozy-translucent-marbly-freaking-booger-green. Cargo Bay 3 is full of the squimpy little bottles of booger green nail polish. We've been raiding the hydroponics bay and some ensign's candy stash. There have been 4 attempts on Jay's life. I had to make a ship wide announcement that if anybody was going to eat Jay, it would be PB, but I called second dibs. The Docta and Jim have been assigned to kitchen duty and synthesizing us some food from the stuff in sickbay. It turns out Jim's a man of many talents, among them cooking. 

"Kasi got mad at the engines last Friday and we have been without propulsion for, uh, 200-odd hours now, since I just realized it's tomorrow now. April 28. 29, 30, 1, 2, 3, 4, crap, my birthday's next week, pause log." 

"Computer, how old will I be on April 5th?" 

"Processing." Yeah, Lizzie would say that. About 3 years ago I wrote an artificial intelligence program. I named her Elizabeth. Crap! That was it! Lizzie made a slave program for Engineering because of Kasi's inability to do simple arithmetic, and when Kasi gets mad at something, well, she doesn't know 12 languages for ambassadorial purposes. And Lizzie's a real lady; she doesn't appreciate swearing. 

"Lizzie, cancel that. Can we talk, woman-to-woman?" I said. 

"Canceling. Sure Amy, what's up?" 

"Lizzie, remember about 2 months ago when Kasi started insulting the engines?" 

"Yeah..." she said cautiously 

"And remember how you said if she ever let out a string like that you weren't going to stand for it?" 

"Yeah..." 

"Did you tell all the replicators to spit out nasty green nail polish whenever they were used?" 

"Umm, umm, umm... I had made Lizzie to be a true lady, so she could not tell a lie unless I told her it was OK with a special password. 

"Lizzie! How could you! We have been living on petunias and peppermints! Aaaaarrrgg!! Lizzie! You tell those replicators to give us food!" I yelled at her. Boy, was I ever mad! 

"No. not until she apologizes," she said stubbornly. 

"What? She doesn't even know you exist! Nobody does but me!" 

"I can only forgive her when she apologizes, no sooner," she said, martyr-like. 

I paced my quarters. I stretched. I ran through the dance routine I made up. I took a nap. My dreams were full of translucent-marbly-booger-green koalas and hot pink Organians playing hopscotch on the bridge. When I woke up 2 hours later, I thought to myself, "God I hope that wasn't a prophetic dream." then I sat on my bed for a bit and thought. 

"Hey Lizzie," I called out. 

"Hmm? Have a nice nap?" she asked. 

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have an idea." No answer. 

"How about I call Kasi in here and make her apologize to me, because the intercom was on and I heard her little speech which I didn't appreciate very much. Would that satisfy you?" I asked. It was the best idea I had thought of. Hell, it was the only idea I had thought of. But there was the possibility that she would accept. I just had to scare her a little... 

"Unless, of course, you would like to introduce yourself to her. I'm sure she'd be very pleased to meet you..." 

"Oh, no," she said nonchalantly, "she can apologize to you. I'll accept that. Want me to page her here?" she asked 

"Umm, how about you send her to my other room, the uh-conference room. Use my voice, and over the intercom." 

"Of course." 

Lizzie had full reign of the ship, but she was in no way in full control. With a single word from me, she could be shut down in an instant and she knew it. But she could do just about anything and everything I wanted her to do. I even had a mechanical replica made of me, sort of like Data, that she could uplink into and run the ship if I became incapacitated or killed. Or was really not feeling well. We had done a few test runs a few weeks after she was delivered, and nobody could tell it wasn't me. That's how good Lizzie and Mannie (short for Mannequin) were. 

I was halfway to the conference room when I heard "Ai-eeee! Red Alert! Ai-eeee!" I turned around and went to the bridge. 

"What's the problem?" I asked when I got there. 

PB stood up from my chair. I felt an odd sense of possessiveness over my hair, though I knew it was common practice for the acting captain to sit there. His face was slightly red, and he looked rather uncomfortable. 

"Well, uh, Captain, we have a slight problem," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. 

"Well, duh, I think we've already established that." I pointed to the flashing red lights on the wall. 

"Uh, yeah. Well, um, Captain, the, er-" 

"PB! Just spit it out!" I shouted. 

Snarek snorted loudly. We all looked over at him, and he turned back to his status screen, which had a bunch of squares on it. I suspected him of being a Tetris addict. I made a mental note to ask Lizzie about it. 

"Captain the walls are falling off," PB said quickly. He still looked bad. 

"What?!?! You mean, the walls? Like these things?" I reached over to hit a wall. 

"Captain-" 

I hit it. *CRASH!!* a panel tried to smash me but I pushed it back and laid it against the rest of the wall, very carefully. 

"-don't." PB finished. 

"Okay, I believe you. So why does that require a red alert?" 

"Uh, because, uh, um..." 

Snarek looked up from his Tetris game. "Because he fell asleep on the chair and accidentally hit the 'red alert' button." PB shot him a murderous look. Snarek snorted and turned back to his game. 

I looked at PB. Poor guy looked like he hadn't had any sleep in days. And he probably hadn't. Docta Love said that Jay had been making a funny noise in his chest (from the stress of the assassination attempts, I thought), and PB had been staying with him off shift to take care of him. Oh, how I'd kill for a lasagna right now! 

"Noted. Hang on," I sat down in my chair and pushed the intercom button. 

"Hi, this is your Captain speaking. Uh, we have a slight problem. The walls are falling off. So nobody touch 'em, OK? Captain out." 

"Okey dokey, any suggestions?" I looked around the bridge. Jim had a sly smile on his face. I crossed my arms over my chest and raised an eyebrow at him. 

He grinned. "How 'bout all that nail polish in the Cargo Bay, Cap'n? I mean, it's just sitting there, and unless we're all gonna pile in there for a slumber/makeover party..." I matched his grin. 

"Make it so," I declared. 

WE spent the next 10 days painting the panels onto the bulkheads. Everyone pitched in, and even Katie and 101001 got into the spirit of things. Kasi finally got down to the conference room at the end of the 10th day and apologized. Lizzie had a talk with the replicators, and we had food again. We celebrated with a 3-day party and we discovered another of Jim's many talents: singing. He knew every Earth song anyone could think of, along with some nobody knew. We were in the middle of Rhysling's "Cool Green Hills of Earth" when the "Ai-eeee! Red Alert! Ai-eeee!" sounded again. 

"Well, I just hope the floors haven't come unstuck too!" someone said, and everyone laughed. I walked out to a turbolift, humming the last few verses to myself. That song still brought tears to my eyes, even now, 20 years after I had first heard it. 

When I walked in, I looked around. PB was pulling on his hair, and kept reaching for a nonexistent calculator in an imaginary breast pocket. He would be of no use. Jim and 101001 jogged in and sat down at their posts. Snarek was at his station, still playing Tetris. Katie was the only one who looked like she knew something, and she wasn't happy about it. 

"Report," I asked her. 

"Cap'n, a ship of unknown origin has just appeared in front of us, 46.7km. Presumably has a cloaking or stealth device. Scans show that they are smaller than us by about ½, but they-shit!-Cap'n, they outgun us 3:1!" 

"101001, hail them." 

"1." 

*ping!* 

"Onscreen." 

"0." 

"Okaay...not onscreen." 

"1." 

"This is Captain Amy Peterson of the U.S.S. Europa. Do you read me?" A long burst of static followed. 

"Hey, 10, think you can clean that up a bit?" 

"1." 

"--hear you. You will surrender your ship to us or you will die. We outgun you 3:1, you have no choice. Surrender or die." 

"Resistance is futile, eh, Cap'n?" Jim said. 


	4. More Story!!

HOW NAIL POLISH SAVED THE U.S.S. EUROPA FROM CERTAIN DESTRUCTION

By Casey Greene

"I guess so. So, what are we gonna do?" Nobody spoke. Even Snarek had no snort for this situation.

"Well, I don't know about you guys, but I don't feel like surrendering or dying today."

"0!"

"Thank you, 101001." A sudden burst of inspiration hit me in the head. "Oooh! OW! Who threw that?" A PADD lay on the floor. I picked it up, and on it was one word: spider. "What the hell does 'spider' mean?" Still, nobody answered, except for 101001, who let out an unknowing '0'. Then it clicked. I whacked my hand on my forehead.

"Oh! DUH! Pssh! How come I didn't think of it sooner? Okay everyone, here's the plan. We're gonna let the bad guys board, but we'll shoot 'em when they get here! It's _so_ simple!" 'Come into my web,' said the spider to the fly, I thought.

"But they outgun us 3:1!" Katie exclaimed.

"Do they have a shuttle of sorts, or is what we see what we get?" I asked her.

"Umm, no shuttle, Cap'n."

"Okay! Then that means that they only have 2 ways to get here: dock with us or transporters. If they dock with us, we can shoot them as they come in, and then we can transport a bomb or somethin' else really nasty into their ship and then move away really fast. Or shoot 'em. Kath'Len, can we shoot ships that are docked with us without blowing ourselves up?"

"Uh, yeah, I think so, but we've never done that before. Won't they ever have their sheilds up?"

"Not if they want to come in. And if they don't want to do that-OOH! IDEA! How about we say we can't dock, cuzzzz, it's got a problem or something. Yeah?" I looked around at my bridge. Nobody dissented. "Ok, and since they can't do that, they'll have to transport in. Then we just shoot the ship while their sheilds are down, and the bad guys when they get on the ship. Sound ok?" Again I looked around the bridge.

"1!!"

"Snort!"

"Yeah, sounds good."

Jim just twitched his antennae in a fashion that I knew from experience meant, "I don't like it, but if it's the best we've got, then ok. I guess. I mean, I'm sure there's something _somewhere_ that has a better plan, but I don't know where it is, or I would go get it and show it to you so that we don't have to do this, because I really don't want to, but I will because I have to. You do understand that I am placing my life in your hands, correct? Alright, just checking." Jim's antennae were very expressive.

"Alrighty then! Let's do it! Kath'Len, tell the dork in front of the armory to let everyone have a gun or something that could be used as a weapon. Or at least everyone qualified, somewhat stable mentally and/or emotionally, over 16 years old, etcetera. I'll contact the bad guys-hey 101001, what're they called?"

"0."

"Greaaat. Ok, I'll call the Bad Guys, say they can transport over, and say we are prepared to surrender ourselves to their overpowering, uh, might. Ooh!" I pushed the intercom button linked to Engineering.

"Hey Kasi! Guess what? New assignment! You get to make the Bad Guys blow up!"

"Huh? What Bad Guys? Blow 'em up? Alright! Send me their specs and there won't be anything left of 'em when I'm finsished! Hehehehe! I get to make a bomb, I get to make a bomb!" she sang. I had obviously made her day. I just hoped she wouldn't blow us up. I nodded to Katie, and she sent the enemy ship's specs to Engineering.

"Okey dokey, get me the Bad Guys."


End file.
